Apple's stock price has gained 5.83 percent since last week's unveiling of the new iPad, crushing advisors who thought that the release would provide a good opportunity to sell.

Apple closed at $568.10 per share, a new all time high just 8 cents below the 52 week high set during the trading day.

The new high set the company's market cap at $529.68 billion - that's less than a half billion less than the annual American military budget, but now $120 billion higher than Exxon Mobil, which had been neck and neck with Apple in market cap over the past two quarters.

Apple's market cap (the value of all outstanding shares in the company) is now greater than the market cap of Google, HP, RIM and Microsoft combined.

And while the company's stock was already up 46.11 percent for the year, it's up another nearly 6 percent since the iPad event last Wednesday, a time pinpointed by a variety of pundits as a good opportunity to sell.

The day before the iPad event, Motley Fool writer Anders Bylund provided "4 Reasons to Sell Apple Today," recounting among other things that Apple's "cool factor is fading fast."

He was joined by a variety of other pundits who described previous stock price drops at or around new product introductions. Apple's stock briefly fell nearly 10 percent after the release of iPad 2 last spring, but has since climbed nearly 54 percent over the past year.

The Motley Fool is the financial equivalent of DigiTimes. I applaud them for their encouragement of understanding financial reports. But if you ever watch one of their videos on Apple, it's as if they haven't a clue.

In the couple of days after the new iPad announcement, Apple fell from ~$545 to ~$520.

I thought it was too good to pass up, and added to my collection. Apparently, I wasn't alone!

It must suck to be an Apple short.

Apple fell over a few days prior to the iPad announcement, opening at 520 the day before. But after the announcement, Apple opened up $10 up each day, and maintaining that growth over the past week. That's how it got from ~530 to $568 in a week.

While I do think that a company or corp can only continue at an upwards pace for so long be it 10, 20 30 years without major losses there has to be a limit as to how much they can keep gaining at an upwards pace. Although Apple has shown it is capable of staying on top and having record gains. I do believe the critics are speaking as if they are narrow minded in understanding Apple and its products capabilities on influencing the public not only now but in years to come.

In the couple of days after the new iPad announcement, Apple fell from ~$545 to ~$520.

I thought it was too good to pass up, and added to my collection. Apparently, I wasn't alone!

It must suck to be an Apple short.

I hate to admit it, but I sold at $542 before the announcement. I didn't have a fortune in but i was long for 4 years and figured I should lock in some nice gain and wait for the illogical correction that always seems to happen when things are going well.
I felt like a genius for about 26 hours! Now I'm like the kid at the playground sitting by himself watching all the other kids play a game...

The Motley Fool is just that: a motley fool. The value of APPL stock will rise or fall based on its earnings, not because some bozo at the Motley Fool wants to say something provocative in an attempt to drive traffic to his website. As anyone with half a brain can see upon looking at the facts, it is virtually certain that Apple will sell substantially more iPads, iPhones and Macs in each of the next 2 to 3 years. This will drive a dramatic increase in earnings, and because the P/E ratio of APPL stock remains at a ludicrously low level, the stock price can only go up.

I hate to admit it, but I sold at $542 before the announcement. I didn't have a fortune in but i was long for 4 years and figured I should lock in some nice gain and wait for the illogical correction that always seems to happen when things are going well.
I felt like a genius for about 26 hours! Now I'm like the kid at the playground sitting by himself watching all the other kids play a game...

Next time think about not buying or selling 100% of a position at once.

The Motley Fool is just that: a motley fool. The value of APPL stock will rise or fall based on its earnings, not because some bozo at the Motley Fool wants to say something provocative in an attempt to drive traffic to his website. As anyone with half a brain can see upon looking at the facts, it is virtually certain that Apple will sell substantially more iPads, iPhones and Macs in each of the next 2 to 3 years. This will drive a dramatic increase in earnings, and because the P/E ratio of APPL stock remains at a ludicrously low level, the stock price can only go up.

What does the stock symbol for Appell Petroleum have to do with this discussion?

I hate to admit it, but I sold at $542 before the announcement. I didn't have a fortune in but i was long for 4 years and figured I should lock in some nice gain and wait for the illogical correction that always seems to happen when things are going well.
I felt like a genius for about 26 hours! Now I'm like the kid at the playground sitting by himself watching all the other kids play a game...

Your blunder is that you sold it all. You should have sold half, kept half to hedge your bets.

Now you have no position whatsoever. Your mistake.

You can rebuy when it drops down to $530 or whatever. Naturally, you'll get dinged on the transaction fees, but at least you sold long in a year when capital gains are still relatively low.

Everyone (should) knows that people sell off at the run-up to an Apple product announcement, more so then at the announcement itself - so any announcement is a buy-in opportunity...

So that is what I did. I sold my Apple shares on Wednesday the week before the announcement at $544.50 and then bought them back on launch day for $533.12. That netted me over $2300 in the span of 2 weeks (I have 50 shares). Overall I must say I am a very happy Apple investor (and customer)

I hate to admit it, but I sold at $542 before the announcement. I didn't have a fortune in but i was long for 4 years and figured I should lock in some nice gain and wait for the illogical correction that always seems to happen when things are going well.
I felt like a genius for about 26 hours! Now I'm like the kid at the playground sitting by himself watching all the other kids play a game...

You could get back in, eat the loss and enjoy the ride to $1,000.

From Apple ][ - to new Mac Pro I've owned them all.Long on AAPL so biased"Google doesn't sell you anything, Google just sells you!"

Next time think about not buying or selling 100% of a position at once.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cvaldes1831

Your blunder is that you sold it all. You should have sold half, kept half to hedge your bets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by digitalclips

You could get back in, eat the loss and enjoy the ride to $1,000.

The three wise men!

Of course, you are all right. Problem is, this started as "play around money" and AAPL annoyingly made it real money. I have house projects coming on line and expect to need this money this summer. Although I am still long on Apple (in theory now), no one knows what it will do day-to-day or even month-to-month. (Remember the annoying drop at the end of 2008 despite fantastic fundamentals?)
I decided to lock in money that I was beginning to count on figuring that it had been on a good run and was likely to plateau for a bit--if not drop. HA! We all know how that turned out (up another 6 in pre-market today).
I don't even know why I am still talking. I guess I'm trying to convince myself that there was a rational basis for throwing away $3K (and counting)...

The Motley Fool is just that: a motley fool. The value of APPL stock will rise or fall based on its earnings, not because some bozo at the Motley Fool wants to say something provocative in an attempt to drive traffic to his website. As anyone with half a brain can see upon looking at the facts, it is virtually certain that Apple will sell substantially more iPads, iPhones and Macs in each of the next 2 to 3 years. This will drive a dramatic increase in earnings, and because the P/E ratio of APPL stock remains at a ludicrously low level, the stock price can only go up.

The problem with Motley Fool over the years is that it grew too fast once they introduced their fantasy market thing (CAPS) they seem to have lost their way a bit. They were one of the few resources on the net that was actually educating the novice to intermediate investor instead of dazzling them with $.49 trades, and "level 99" options.

The problem is that real investing education... is... boring... and playing fantasy stock market is more interesting to the average dummy. There are far fewer articles on there than there used to be. The don't even bother tracking their original portfolios anymore.

I'm not sure if "they" don't understand Apple since Fool.com has a lot of contracted writers now. There's not exactly one vision like there used to be.

I still read them occasionally, but I wish they would get back to their ( presumably less profitable, but wiser ) roots.

For me as an Apple shareholder, I won't even think about selling until I start getting negative answers to these questions:

- Are Apple's products clearly the market leader?
- Does the public view them as extremely desired?
- Are they able to consistently keep margins above 25%?
- Are the verticals succeeding in the public's eye and gaining membership YOY? ( App store, itunes store, Apple TV )

Then I also consider these questions:

- Are there any emerging products that outperform Apple devices in the Enterprise? ( you might find this strange since Apple doesn't care about the enterprise, but it matters to me on long term growth )
- Are there any major lawsuits that do not go in Apple's favor that will lock them out of a region?
- Are there signs that Apple is going viewed as a monopoly by regulators?
- Are there any major social trends that might affect Apple's perception among the public?

Anal-ists (no spelling error) encouraging people to sell, based on what premise.

A personal bias axe to grind? Or they haven't caught on to the fact that Apple doesn't play by Wall Street's rules. Of course Apple will fall from its pedestal someday. All companies do eventually. But Steve Jobs and Apple will go down in business history. Remember the "Toyota Way" craze that swept through American business? We are at the beginning of the "Apple Way" and anal-ists don't get it.

I am the opposite of a stock expert, but I have been an apple guy since my dad brought home a mac SE in 1986. Recently I noticed that the 50% of my rolled over 401k that I put in AAPL was doing great, while the other funds were doing nothing. So a few weeks ago doubled my shares to 300 by selling my other stocks and funds putting all of that IRA money into apple. Every day I sit here as my account gains about $2000 a day, thinking "Holy cow this is FUN!" and yet I know it is dangerous to have my entire IRA in one stock. I plan to sell half at 700 and keep the rest long term.
I probably am better at guessing Apple's stock performance better than a Motley Fool.

The problem is that real investing education... is... boring... and playing fantasy stock market is more interesting to the average dummy.
...
For me as an Apple shareholder, I won't even think about selling until I start getting negative answers to these questions:

- Are Apple's products clearly the market leader?
- Does the public view them as extremely desired?
- Are they able to consistently keep margins above 25%?
- Are the verticals succeeding in the public's eye and gaining membership YOY? ( App store, itunes store, Apple TV )

Then I also consider these questions:

- Are there any emerging products that outperform Apple devices in the Enterprise? ( you might find this strange since Apple doesn't care about the enterprise, but it matters to me on long term growth )
- Are there any major lawsuits that do not go in Apple's favor that will lock them out of a region?
- Are there signs that Apple is going viewed as a monopoly by regulators?
- Are there any major social trends that might affect Apple's perception among the public?

Great post. Investing is not "exciting". If it's exciting, you're probably not investing, but gambling. There's nothing wrong with gambling (as long as it's your own money and you can afford to lose it), but people need to know the difference.

Your points/questions are great, and resemble the kinds of questions I constantly keep in the back of my mind as I watch Apple and the overall markets. 1b and 2d are very similar, but generally good points. Other stuff off the top of my head:

* What is happening with the overall world economy? This can be hedged out, but it's relevant.
* What does the (likely) product pipeline look like? (growth in new product areas, like possible TV)
* Investor sentiment. This is psychology as much as analysis, but significant. Not altogether separate from consumer sentiment, but different enough to consider separately.
* Alternative investments; at the end of the day, where else would I park this money? Are there other equities with better potential? Maybe, but they seem higher risk to me. Could I pay off the mortgage? Sure, but that's investment money that's costing me less than 5%/yr, and I feel AAPL is a better investment right now. At the levels I'm at, much of it could be considered gambling, but I'm able to weather significant ups and downs without hardship.
* Management. Over the past 5 years I would rate management as *stellar*. Currently, I think they are still excellent, with one of the strongest overall executive management teams in the world for a company of their size, although losing Ron Johnson sucks. Jobs' untimely death weighs on this, of course, but he has done an outstanding job of setting the company up to be successful for the next few years, barring some huge unforeseen event(s).

Enterprise, which you mention, is huge. I think many people are underestimating the amount of potential growth in AAPL due to new adoption by enterprise. The iPad is making huge gains in those markets, much of it due to heavy iPhone use by executives and other leaders. Many IT leaders are big users of the MacBook/Pro lineups, thanks to the unix core and zillions of geeky open source tools. So because
1) IT is far more accepting of Apple products now, and
2) executives pushing for their own personal use of Apple products at work, and
3) current relatively small market share in enterprise.
there is huge potential here. Imagine if Apple could "just" gain an additional 10% of the enterprise market.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bill42

I am the opposite of a stock expert,
...
So a few weeks ago doubled my shares to 300 by selling my other stocks and funds putting all of that IRA money into apple. Every day I sit here as my account gains about $2000 a day, thinking "Holy cow this is FUN!" and yet I know it is dangerous to have my entire IRA in one stock.

This is the other side of the equation, and why I still worry. This attitude is reminiscent of the pre-2000 market. In the late 90s everyone and their brother (and sister and cousin and mom and dad) were putting money into the stock market because all their friends were doing it and making good money. Regardless of the fact they they know nothing of investing.

This is not meant as an insult to bill42 as much as it is a reminder that when everyone has their money in the pot there's no new money to enter the game. We're not there yet, but when I start seeing lots of people who no nothing of investing putting their money in the market I'm going to start reducing my positions.

This classic Apple truism bit the dust long ago: "Apple products are all overpriced."

Ultrabook manufacturers can only match MacBook Air prices at razor thin margins. Pad computer makers struggle to match iPad pricing and are forced to cut corners (7" screens, plastic enclosures, etc.) Apple has worked long and hard to improve their supply chain economy of scale and to bring down their production costs. They've relentlessly developed fundamental technologies like battery chemistry and chip design, and manufacturing processes like their computerized aluminum milling machines and Liquidmetal molding techniques. And they won't stop. Their costs will continue to drop, and their margins will stay up, as their retail prices continue to drop.

This old chestnut is on its way out: "Buy AAPL on rumor, sell on news."

As recently as last year, AAPL was heavily and successfully manipulated by shorters. Any time a stock rises as rapidly as AAPL has, the shorters wake up and gamble that the stock has peaked. And it is, after all, pure gambling. Exactly like rolling dice or playing roulette. Unless you manufacture some phony negative Apple news that panics major investors into selling. Imagine if you were able to bluff the dealer when you play blackjack, to make them fold. That would tip the odds in your favor a bit, wouldn't it?

Well this year the scare tactics haven't worked. There's less uncertainty in Apple's future now. The #1 concern last year was Apple's stability post-Jobs. Who would run the company? Would that person be effective? Would Apple's products continue to have that unique appeal? All those questions have been answered.

Naturally, you'll get dinged on the transaction fees, but at least you sold long in a year when capital gains are still relatively low.

I have a question on this: IF they raise Capital Gains, when is a realistic timeframe that we can expect that to happen? Also, IF it happens, what happens to those who bought Stocks, and/or are Long before the change takes place? Would it (hopefully) only affect those who are buying Stocks AFTER the Capital Gain % change?

I have a question on this: IF they raise Capital Gains, when is a realistic timeframe that we can expect that to happen? Also, IF it happens, what happens to those who bought Stocks, and/or are Long before the change takes place? Would it (hopefully) only affect those who are buying Stocks AFTER the Capital Gain % change?

It's impossible to predict what a law that hasn't been passed (or even proposed) would say, but it is most likely that it would apply to all stocks whether purchased before or after the change in the law.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

It's impossible to predict what a law that hasn't been passed (or even proposed) would say, but it is most likely that it would apply to all stocks whether purchased before or after the change in the law.

Ah. Well, if not even proposed yet, even if it did happen, and wasn't typical fearful doomsday prediction stuff, I'm sure those who aren't yet Long, but are on the way to be within the next several months, would have a chance to Sell (and Buy back if they wanted) before it eventually might pass.

Great post. Investing is not "exciting". If it's exciting, you're probably not investing, but gambling. There's nothing wrong with gambling (as long as it's your own money and you can afford to lose it), but people need to know the difference.

Your points/questions are great, and resemble the kinds of questions I constantly keep in the back of my mind as I watch Apple and the overall markets. 1b and 2d are very similar, but generally good points. Other stuff off the top of my head:

* What is happening with the overall world economy? This can be hedged out, but it's relevant.
* What does the (likely) product pipeline look like? (growth in new product areas, like possible TV)
* Investor sentiment. This is psychology as much as analysis, but significant. Not altogether separate from consumer sentiment, but different enough to consider separately.
* Alternative investments; at the end of the day, where else would I park this money? Are there other equities with better potential? Maybe, but they seem higher risk to me. Could I pay off the mortgage? Sure, but that's investment money that's costing me less than 5%/yr, and I feel AAPL is a better investment right now. At the levels I'm at, much of it could be considered gambling, but I'm able to weather significant ups and downs without hardship.
* Management. Over the past 5 years I would rate management as *stellar*. Currently, I think they are still excellent, with one of the strongest overall executive management teams in the world for a company of their size, although losing Ron Johnson sucks. Jobs' untimely death weighs on this, of course, but he has done an outstanding job of setting the company up to be successful for the next few years, barring some huge unforeseen event(s).

Enterprise, which you mention, is huge. I think many people are underestimating the amount of potential growth in AAPL due to new adoption by enterprise. The iPad is making huge gains in those markets, much of it due to heavy iPhone use by executives and other leaders. Many IT leaders are big users of the MacBook/Pro lineups, thanks to the unix core and zillions of geeky open source tools. So because
1) IT is far more accepting of Apple products now, and
2) executives pushing for their own personal use of Apple products at work, and
3) current relatively small market share in enterprise.
there is huge potential here. Imagine if Apple could "just" gain an additional 10% of the enterprise market.

This is the other side of the equation, and why I still worry. This attitude is reminiscent of the pre-2000 market. In the late 90s everyone and their brother (and sister and cousin and mom and dad) were putting money into the stock market because all their friends were doing it and making good money. Regardless of the fact they they know nothing of investing.

This is not meant as an insult to bill42 as much as it is a reminder that when everyone has their money in the pot there's no new money to enter the game. We're not there yet, but when I start seeing lots of people who no nothing of investing putting their money in the market I'm going to start reducing my positions.

In the meantime, everyone go buy AAPL!

Excellent advice and commentary, Blah64. I agree 100%. I hope people realize that some careful thought and dispassionate examination of the facts is extremely important to not get carried away. Good luck to you and everyone who has invested in Apple!